between the pages of one of his precious books: a small
hoard of which he had collected at some cost and more self-denial.

One of the grievances of his life was the necessity under which he
found himself of protecting his treasure from the Philistine abuse and
contempt of his wife. When they moved into the flat, Mrs. Worthington,
during her husband's absence, had ranged them all, systematically
enough, on the top shelf of the kitchen closet to "get them out of the
way." But at this he had protested, and taken a positive stand, to
which his wife had so far yielded as to permit that they be placed on
the top shelf of the bedroom closet; averring that to have them laying
around was a thing that she would not do, for they spoilt the looks of
any room.

He had not foreseen the possibility of their usefulness being a
temptation to his wife in so handy a receptacle.

Seeking once a volume of Ruskin's Miscellanies, he discovered that it
had been employed to support the dismantled leg of a dressing bureau.
On another occasion, a volume of Schopenhauer, which he had been at
much difficulty and expense to procure, Emerson's Essays, and two
other volumes much prized, he found had served that lady as weights to
hold down a piece of dry goods which she had sponged and spread to dry
on an available section of roof top.

He was glad enough to transport them all back to the safer refuge of
the kitchen closet, and pay the hired girl a secret stipend to guard
them.

Mr. Worthington regarded women as being of peculiar and unsuitable
conformation to the various conditions of life amid which they are
placed; with strong moral proclivities, for the most part subservient
to a weak and inadequate mentality.

It was not his office to remodel them; his role was simply to endure
with patience the vagaries of an order of human beings, who after all,
offered an interesting study to a man of speculative habit, apart from
their usefulness as propagators of the species.

As regards this last qualification, Mrs. Worthington had done less
than her fair share, having but one child, a daughter of twelve, whose
training and education had been assumed by an aunt of her father's, a
nun of some standing in the Sacred Heart Convent.

Quite a different type of man was Jack Dawson, Lou's husband. Short,
round, young, blonde, good looking and bald--as what St. Louis man
past thirty is not? he rejoiced in the agreeable calling of a
traveling salesman.